Fenrìr wrote:Yea, I just got caught up on the paladin stuff over at EJ. It is a bit sickening at how much it was nerfed. Hopefully I get the axe from Yor'sahj this week over the trials (yea right...I'm a tank, luls).

If it helps, the sword is still pretty wildly BiS IIRC.

"Don't facepalm at me... Ret paladins don't facepalm each other. Its against the code!" -Anafielle

warden wrote:- The community moderators don't all understand the difference between Seal of Truth and Censure.

Pretty sure the same issue cropped up with the axe from the Bonestorm!!!! guy. I believe it is the application of Censure upon the target that is counted as the melee attack (my logs show misses Censure which isn't possible with a DoT), not the proc of Seal of Truth damage. So it isn't that they don't understand it just that, as always, Paladin mechanics are goofy.

Seal of Truth: Name of the self buff. Name of the Direct Damage weapon attack.Censure: Name of the secondary attack you do when SoT is active that stacks the same named Censure DoT.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

Normal Gur remains ahead of Heroic Scalpel or Cudgel by about 500 DPS.

That's at an average 8.5 ticks. Looking at the logs linked above I'm still seeing an average of 8.5 ticks, even though the proc supposedly lasts an additional 2 seconds (previously 10, now 12). Even at 9 ticks flat the rankings order would not change (though all classes with Gur would do a bit more DPS).

As for Gur proccing from Rend ticks for Warriors - we have to suck it up this time. TAiaJ procced abnormally high for Ret compared to other classes. Item imbalances occur. We got the short end of the stick this time, which is a shame, but just because we're not the one accidentally stronger should not be a reason for us to complain. I'm of the opinion that forum complaints about another class and requests to correct/nerf them serve no one - they don't increase our capabilities and only hurt raiding as a whole. This is why I've always pushed to let Blizzard know when something procs too much/little - better they fix it and get numbers where they want than leave it and "fix" something else and accidentally destroy a class (which has happened at times).

Edit: Confirmed - Rend does not proc. Doesn't change the point of the above paragraph, so it will not be altered.

I don't doubt it... Not everyone does. I prefer simcraft over Exemplar's spreadsheet myself (don't like his haste modeling), but neither is proven conclusively right. I'll be rolling on the next H Specimen that drops just in case. I'm really hoping Blizzard comes to their senses, reverts the changes, and then fixes the sword, hopefully with a reasonable ICD, but we'll see.

Also, I was getting about 1400 dps for the post-nerf tentacles from Gurth, but only had time to run about 450k cycles on simcraft. Interesting stuff though:

*** I'm not sure how much I trust these, so I hesitate to post them elsewhere... Those ret numbers just seem a LOT lower than what I see in logs for myself and Ana. The arms numbers also seem a bit low.

"Don't facepalm at me... Ret paladins don't facepalm each other. Its against the code!" -Anafielle

I've had no issue with Eye or Vessel stacks, but those were never hard to build/maintain anyway. Pliers and others were reporting problems with AoK (I don't use it on the fights I was doing the last two nights), and some posters on EJ, Official Forums and MMO Champion were talking about possible reductions in Landslide and proccing-trinket uptime along with AoK. I'll take a peek at the logs from the last couple nights and see if I can determine anything. I'd also appreciate anyone with a Bone-Link Fettesh to look at theirs and post the results.

Edit: Data on this is being updated fairly quickly on EJ. Current analysis there tends to indicate that trinkets and Landslide are not affected, with the possible exception of AoK. Most of my information is coming from the EJ Ret thread; I'm going to link it below for those interested in keeping up to date to avoid bumping this thread 3-4 times/day.

How often have you needed to taunt a boss at the beginning of the fight this expansion? Unless you'd already heard about the bug or you're a bad tank that taunts at the beginning of the pull I can see your ret paladin dieing in the confusion the first time.

and NO we don't have a Ret Pally in our raid, and I haven't experienced the bug first hand. just saying, if ever seeing that I lose aggro, my first reflex is to press "1" which is my taunt. agreed und er normal circumstances I didn't need to taunt at the beginning of a fight in a long time. (except for some stupid dps pulls) but the refelxes are still there.

and as soon as the bug is known. the ret pulls up righteous fury gets external CDs and get easy tank for 10 to 15 seconds, at which point aggro cap would be reached considering the log above.

Levantine wrote:How often have you needed to taunt a boss at the beginning of the fight this expansion? Unless you'd already heard about the bug or you're a bad tank that taunts at the beginning of the pull I can see your ret paladin dieing in the confusion the first time.

Bad tanks taunt on the pull? News to me. Late misdirect, tricks to other dps, having first two attacks miss - a tank that doesn't taunt as they pull to guarantee aggro for first 3 seconds is what I'd consider bad.

Levantine wrote:How often have you needed to taunt a boss at the beginning of the fight this expansion? Unless you'd already heard about the bug or you're a bad tank that taunts at the beginning of the pull I can see your ret paladin dieing in the confusion the first time.

Bad tanks taunt on the pull? News to me. Late misdirect, tricks to other dps, having first two attacks miss - a tank that doesn't taunt as they pull to guarantee aggro for first 3 seconds is what I'd consider bad.

Don't confuse compensating for regular bad behaviour (the bug free kind) from the rest of the raid with a good habit to have in general. What I'm curious over is how you can have a late Misdirection? Are your Hunters not as eager to pew pew as your casters who are precasting nukes?

In pugs late/no mds are common. Also with guilds other than my main's guild. When MM was the spec of choice the opening shot was a 2 secondish aimed shot hardcast, and on some fights pre-casting wasn't possible (Sinestra without resetting). With pre-casting in general, you frequently get someone who goes a half second earlier than anyone else, and if it's a pyroblast crit then even a misdirected explosive shot that doesn't crit coupled with a miss or two might not be enough anyway.

Why on earth would someone not taunt on the pull? With a second taunt to cover the five seconds before taunt comes back off cd I have no idea why you wouldn't.

Please give me tips on how to do better on Madness. It's a long fight where I can use cooldowns multiple times, but I'd like to know whether my tactics are useless meter padding, or are actually useful.

In P2, I want to maximize the usefulness of my cooldowns. Am I better off using it when the two big adds are up (so tanks live more easily), or when we're all on Deathwing and heroism is popped? So far I've been using it on Deathwing after the first adds are dead, but am not sure that's the best idea.

In P1, I use Wings+Zealotry when the mutated tentacle pops up, on the theory that killing it sooner will help prevent tank deaths. Also, it happens at the start of the phase, so I'll have the cooldown ready once that island is done, so I can ensure it's ready in P2 when I need it. Is it better to use it when bloods are up, or Cataclysm is happening?

Is it best to use SoR on tentacles in P2? They seem to cluster somewhat randomly, but they often seem to have 2-4 near enough together to hit with SoR. Should I be using it when the big adds are up, also (also for the adds on Blackhorn), or is it better to use SoT? (Now that I recall,I think SoTruth is better for 2 targets, so I've been doing it wrong. Whoops.)

I'll take a look at your gear and such when I get home and can access chardev. Here's what I'd reccomend for cooldown timing (for a typical LFR):

Platform 1: Burn CDs (including GanK) according to normal opener rules with your pre-pot. Anafielle prefers to delay hers about 10 seconds to get more uptime on the mutated corruption; this is quite possibly the smarter option. Burn your 2nd set of AW/Zeal on the arm/wing tentacle unless there are only a few % left on it. If there are, save them to burn on the corruption on platform 2.

Platform 2: Your CDs will still be on cooldown, unless you saved them from Platform 1, in which case you burn them according to normal cycle (3hp, 20+ sec on InQ, etc) on the mutated corruption. Burn your 2nd set on the arm/wing tentacle the same as platform 1, again saving them if there are only a couple % left.

Platform 3: Same thing. You'll almost guarenteed be able to use them on the arm/wing this time, as this is where LFR dps falls off hard due to Noz's 20% haste being gone.

Platform 4: Burn your cooldowns on the arm/wing for the first burning tentacle thing spawn. You have to be really fast at killing them--most of LFR will be tunnel-visioning the arm so it'll be left to the few smart people to kill them quickly. I burn my 2nd guardian and pot here too.

P2: Burn them on DW after the 1st set of terrors die, IF they're back up. Usually they won't be for p2.

When to aoe: Bloods--switch to SoR when the hemorage starts, so that it is already up (and the GCD is over) when they spawn. Divine storm them down. Note that when the bloods are up, Holy Wrath procs spellweaving on each one, making it your 3rd highest priority spell when the whole pile of bloods (on 25 man--there aren't enough on 10 man to elevate its priority) is up.

When the elementium shrapnel-thrower things are up, make a judgement call as soon as you see their pre-spawn locations. If 4 or more are within divine storm range, switch to SoR and aoe them down. If not, leave SoT up and single target them. Again, pre-cast SoR if you're going to switch so the GCD is over. The breakpoint for both SoR and DS to be worth using is 4 targets.

The CD timing is really dependent on the group's dps. What I listed above should be typical for a 25 man LFR pug or a group working on Madness 25 or in the early stages. Later-stage farm groups will find that they move through the fight much faster and have to adjust their CDs appropriately, while LFR groups that are struggling might get full CD burns while under Cata.

Hope it helps!

"Don't facepalm at me... Ret paladins don't facepalm each other. Its against the code!" -Anafielle

warden wrote:I'll take a look at your gear and such when I get home and can access chardev.

Probably not necessary: short of reforging differently, there's not much I can change right now, and just about any 384 raid finder piece is probably better than my 403 pvp piece (if wowhead's ratings are to be believed). The "big" upgrade will be two more pieces of T13, and a Gurthalak, if one ever manages to drop (and I manage to win it). I suspect that my gear needs a lot of improvement before I'll be viable for non-LFR Dragon Soul, though.

warden wrote:Platform 1: Burn CDs (including GanK) according to normal opener rules with your pre-pot... Burn your 2nd set of AW/Zeal on the arm/wing tentacle unless there are only a few % left on it. If there are, save them to burn on the corruption on platform 2.

Hm, I hadn't thought about being able to get TWO cycles in on the first platform. I'll have to try that. I've been waiting for the Corruption because otherwise I have a few wasted seconds of travel time, but getting a second AW/Zeal cycle might be worth it.

warden wrote:Platform 4: Burn your cooldowns on the arm/wing for the first burning tentacle thing spawn. You have to be really fast at killing them--most of LFR will be tunnel-visioning the arm so it'll be left to the few smart people to kill them quickly. I burn my 2nd guardian and pot here too.

I've had really good luck with LFR groups, and the burning tentacles always seem to die fast. If the group seemed to be having trouble, I can certainly see that being a good idea.

warden wrote:The breakpoint for both SoR and DS to be worth using is 4 targets.

Thanks for the reminder -- I've definitely been doing it wrong, then. I guess on two targets, I can stack Censure + SoTruth on both targets, at least.

Thanks a TON for your help. I've been having so much fun as ret that I haven't tanked anything in almost a month.

I have been using normal Gurth but last night picked up a heroic Speciman Slicer. I went back and looked at the logs from our raid last night for the bosses I went Ret; Mostly Hagara heroic but a few pulls on Zon'ozz. The damage done by the Gurth proc was extremely underwhelming, the best pull for the Gurth proc was 1.3% of total damage done. About half the pulls it registered 0% of my total damage done and overall it averaged around .4% total damage done.

I know this is probably not the best sample to pull from because of the nature of the Hagara fight and the length of some of our pulls but to me it would seem that there is no compelling reason to use normal Gurth over heroic Specimen Slicer. Am I missing something here?

Not able to post a link to logs at work but will update the post with the link when I get home.

Not to mention, our chances to proc a tentacle is by far, the lowest of any class that can use the. I think it was calc'd out at around 55 chances per minute while Wars and DKs were 80+. So you're not really missing anything on the data, it's just the nerf Blizzard gave us because we were too high on the dps charts.